Tallahassee, United States
6:35 p.m., August 23, 2010
At that moment, Brian Blake was merely a man sitting beside a sick woman with a frightened child at his side.
And Jason needed every ounce of self-control not to reveal what he was thinking.
Todd stopped in the doorway.
His expression immediately hardened.
“What are you doing here?”
The man slowly stood.
“Todd…”
“No.”
Todd stepped into the room with his fists clenched.
“I asked what you’re doing here.”
Todd’s mother turned toward him.
“Todd, honey…”
Her voice was weak but firm.
The sound made Todd hesitate.
His anger didn’t disappear.
But it lost some of its strength.
Brian regarded him cautiously.
“I came to see your mother.”
Todd released a dry laugh.
“Now?
After all this time?”
The girl beside Brian tightened her grip on his hand.
Brian took a deep breath.
“I know you don’t want to see me.
But that doesn’t change who I am.”
Todd narrowed his eyes.
Brian glanced at Jason before turning back toward Todd.
“I’m your uncle, Todd.”
The word fell heavily into the room.
Jason quickly looked at his friend.
Todd didn’t appear surprised.
Only irritated.
As though their family connection were more of a problem than a revelation.
“You lost the right to call yourself that a long time ago,” Todd said.
Brian accepted the statement without arguing.
At least outwardly.
But Jason noticed something in his eyes.
Brian wasn’t there only because of regret.
Nor was he there merely because they were family.
He watched too closely.
Measured everything too carefully.
And he seemed to know more than he was willing to reveal.
Like someone who had already seen part of the fire and was still deciding how much smoke to show everyone else.
Brian placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“This is Penny.”
The girl timidly stepped behind his leg.
Brian looked at Todd before continuing.
“Your half-sister.”
The statement made the room feel even heavier.
Todd stood motionless.
For a moment, his anger seemed to falter, as though he didn’t know what to do with the new information.
His eyes moved from Brian to Penny.
The girl regarded him shyly, holding tightly to her uncle’s hand.
“Half-sister?” Todd repeated quietly.
Brian nodded.
“Philip’s daughter.”
The mention of his father made Todd’s expression harden again.
“Of course,” he muttered with a dry laugh.
“One more thing he decided to hide.”
Brian didn’t argue.
Todd’s mother closed her eyes for a moment, too exhausted to become involved in the dispute.
Jason, however, barely heard what followed.
Penny.
Philip Blake’s daughter.
Todd’s half-sister.
Brian’s niece.
The name had already struck his memory like a warning.
Now that the family connection had been revealed, its weight became even greater.
In his previous life, Jason remembered enough to know the girl’s fate.
She would be bitten.
She would die.
And she would return as one of those things.
But none of that had happened yet.
Not in that room.
At that moment, Penny was merely a frightened child hiding behind her uncle and staring at a brother she barely knew.
Jason kept his expression calm.
He couldn’t react.
He couldn’t let Brian notice.
He couldn’t allow Todd to realize that the name meant something to him.
“Hi,” Jason said carefully.
Penny didn’t respond.
She merely retreated a little farther behind Brian.
Brian noticed Jason watching her.
“And you are?”
Jason took half a second longer than he should have to answer.
“Jason Miller.”
He kept his voice neutral.
As though the name Brian Blake meant nothing to him.
As though Penny weren’t carrying a terrible future on her small shoulders.
“A friend of Todd’s?” Brian asked.
“His best friend,” Jason answered.
Todd glanced at him but said nothing.
Brian slowly nodded.
“I see.”
But his eyes said something else.
He didn’t understand.
He was trying to.
Trying to fit Jason into the situation.
Trying to determine why a boy who wasn’t part of the family was standing in a hospital room beside Todd at a moment like that.
Todd’s mother extended one hand.
“Todd…”
Her voice broke the tension.
Todd crossed the room and carefully took her hand, as though afraid he might hurt her.
“Hi, Mom.”
All the hardness vanished from his voice.
Jason looked away slightly, giving them a small measure of privacy.
But he continued watching Brian.
The man was still studying him.
Not threateningly.
Not yet.
But there was curiosity in his eyes.
And in that world, curiosity could be as dangerous as a weapon.
“You look nervous, kid,” Brian said.
Jason met his gaze.
“Hospitals make me uncomfortable.”
It wasn’t a lie.
Brian accepted the answer with a slight nod.
But he didn’t appear entirely convinced.
Still holding his mother’s hand, Todd turned toward Jason.
“Jason is helping me.”
Todd’s mother looked at him with mild surprise.
“Helping?”
Todd hesitated.
Jason stepped forward before he could say anything dangerous.
“With a few things outside the hospital.
Transportation.
Logistics.
In case he needs assistance.”
The woman gave him a faint smile.
“Todd always tries to handle everything alone.”
Todd lowered his eyes.
“Mom…”
She squeezed his hand.
“It’s true.”
For a moment, the room seemed smaller.
More human.
Less connected to the end of the world.
But Jason couldn’t ignore Brian.
Or Penny.
Or the fact that the man appeared to know too much for someone who had merely “come to visit.”
Brian looked at Todd.
“I need to speak with you.”
Todd raised his eyes.
“Then speak.”
Brian glanced at Jason.
Then at Todd’s mother.
“Alone.”
Todd became motionless.
Jason immediately noticed the change in his friend.
His body grew rigid.
His jaw tightened.
“I have nothing to discuss with you in private.”
Brian sighed.
“Todd, please.
I didn’t come here to fight.
I came because your mother is in this hospital.”
Todd narrowed his eyes.
“How did you know?”
Brian didn’t immediately respond.
Jason noticed.
So did Todd.
Brian knew something.
Perhaps not everything.
But more than he was revealing.
“I’ve heard things,” Brian finally said.
Todd released a bitter laugh.
“Things?
What kind of things?”
Brian looked at Penny.
Then he turned back toward Todd.
“Things I would rather not discuss in front of her.”
Penny tightened her grip on her uncle’s hand.
The room fell silent.
Jason felt the weight of the moment.
Todd wanted to explode.
He wanted to demand answers.
But his mother was lying in the bed.
Penny was there.
And one wrong sentence could drag more people into something that was already far too dangerous.
Jason stepped backward.
“I’ll wait outside.”
Todd immediately looked at him.
“Jason…”
“It’s all right.”
Jason held his friend’s gaze.
He tried to convey the message without speaking.
Listen first.
Then we decide.
Todd took a deep breath, clearly displeased.
But he nodded.
Jason turned toward his mother.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs.
Jones.”
She gave him a tired smile.
“Thank you for helping my son.”
Jason merely nodded.
Then he looked at Penny one final time.
The girl remained partially hidden behind Brian.
Alive.
Frightened.
Innocent.
Jason looked away before the memory of her future became too overwhelming.
He left the room and carefully closed the door.
The hospital corridor seemed even colder.
Jason leaned against the wall near the door and folded his arms.
On the other side, Brian Blake would speak with Todd.
And Jason hated it.
He hated not knowing what the man knew.
He hated recognizing pieces of the future appearing before their time.
He hated realizing that no matter how carefully he prepared, the world continued moving people and destinies without asking his permission.
Jason looked down the busy corridor.
Nurses passed by.
Patients waited.
Guards watched the doors.
Normalcy was still trying to breathe.
But Jason could no longer see it the same way.
Brian Blake was there.
Penny was alive.
Todd’s mother needed to leave that hospital.
And once again, the future seemed to be approaching far too quickly.
A few minutes later, the door opened.
Jason immediately pushed away from the wall.
Todd emerged first.
Brian remained inside the room, partially visible through the open door.
Penny stood beside him, holding his hand.
The girl watched Todd with a mixture of curiosity and fear, as though still trying to understand what it meant to have an older brother she had never truly known.
Todd said nothing.
He simply walked down the corridor.
Jason followed him.
“Todd?”
His friend kept moving.
“Not here.”
His voice was quiet.
Without anger.
Without strength.
That concerned Jason more than any shouting would have.
They left the hospital in silence.
They passed the reception desk, the guards, the automatic doors, and the crowded parking lot.
Jason waited for Todd to speak, but his friend seemed trapped inside his own thoughts.
Instead of heading directly toward the bus stop, Todd continued along the sidewalk.
Jason walked beside him without asking questions.
Several blocks later, they reached a small park.
Children played in the distance.
Mothers sat on benches.
A man walked his dog.
Trees swayed slowly in the warm afternoon breeze.
Normalcy.
Always there.
Always insisting on appearing alive.
Todd sat on a secluded bench.
Jason sat beside him.
Neither spoke for a while.
Todd rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of his face.
Then he asked a question.
“What would you do?”
Jason looked at him.
“About what?”
Todd continued staring at the ground.
“If it were your mother.”
Jason remained silent.
Todd took a deep breath.
“If your mother were sick.
If the world were about to end.
If someone appeared and told you there was a place with medicine, security, and organized people.”
He turned toward Jason.
His eyes were red but dry.
“And if you suddenly discovered you had a little sister.”
Jason understood.
Penny.
Philip Blake’s daughter.
Todd’s half-sister.
Brian’s niece.
A child who carried a terrible fate in Jason’s memories.
A child who was still alive.
“I would try to keep everyone together,” Jason answered after several seconds.
Todd held his gaze.
“I would do everything I could to save my mother,” Jason continued.
“Even if it only gave her a little more time.”
Todd swallowed hard.
“Even if it wasn’t much time?”
Jason looked toward the children playing in the distance.
“Time is still time.”
The answer seemed to strike Todd hard.
He lowered his head again and released a weak, humorless laugh.
“Brian said he can get my mother out of here.”
Jason became motionless.
Todd continued.
“He said he knows people.
He said he has a place.
A small town in Georgia.”
He rubbed a hand over his face.
“He didn’t explain it very well.
But he spoke as though he had some influence there.”
Jason felt his stomach tighten.
A town in Georgia.
Brian Blake.
People following orders.
It sounded wrong even before it became tangible.
“He said they have medicine there,” Todd continued.
“Equipment.
Maybe doctors.
At least a better chance than this hospital once everything begins falling apart.”
Jason didn’t immediately respond.
Because at that moment, he understood something important.
Todd wasn’t speaking like someone Brian had persuaded.
He was speaking like someone who had been cornered.
“What about Penny?” Jason asked.
Todd closed his eyes.
“She’s going with him.”
He paused.
“With us.”
Jason noticed the distinction.
Todd took a deep breath before continuing.
“Brian said Philip is in Georgia.”
The mention of his father hardened his voice.
“We’re going to pick him up on the way.”
Jason remained silent.
Philip Blake.
Todd’s father.
The man Todd had tried to distance himself from even through his last name.
The man he refused to call his father.
And yet he was far too important a piece of the future Jason remembered.
In his previous life, Jason remembered enough.
Philip Blake wouldn’t survive for long. Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
He would die.
And Brian…
Brian would take his brother’s name for himself.
Philip Blake would cease to be merely the absent brother, the troubled father, or the man Todd hated admitting existed.
His name would become a mask.
A stolen identity.
A name Brian would use to transform himself into someone else.
To command.
To control.
To turn Woodbury into something that resembled a sanctuary on the outside but concealed danger within.
A chill traveled up Jason’s spine.
Todd wasn’t merely going to meet his father.
He was walking directly into the birth of a monster.
“Do you want this?” Jason asked.
Todd released a dry laugh.
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Honestly.
Raw.
“I’ve spent my entire life trying not to need him.
Trying not to owe him anything.
Trying to pretend the name Blake had nothing to do with me.”
He clenched his hands.
“Now I find out that I have a sister.
A little girl.
And she’s his daughter too.”
Jason felt a weight in his chest.
Penny.
Alive.
Small.
Frightened.
And in Jason’s memories, condemned to a fate he didn’t even want to imagine.
Everything inside him wanted to grab Todd by the shoulders and tell him not to go.
Not to trust Brian.
To run from Philip.
To stay away from Woodbury before it even became a prison disguised as a town.
But how could he explain?
How could he tell Todd that he knew the future?
How could he explain that Brian Blake would one day use his dead brother’s name to rule people through fear?
Jason couldn’t.
Worse still, he had no better alternative to offer.
The warehouse could protect them from ordinary doors.
Not from cancer.
Not from a lack of medicine.
Not from time.
Todd looked at him.
“Would you really do anything?”
Jason knew what question would come next before Todd asked it.
His friend lowered his voice.
“Even if you had to sell your soul to the devil?”
The park seemed to grow quieter.
Jason stared at him.
For a moment, he thought about Brian.
The man inside the hospital.
The calculating gaze.
The incomplete answers.
The shadow of the future already beginning to form around him.
Then Jason thought about Philip.
The man Todd hated.
The father he would still have to face.
The name Brian would one day steal to become something far worse.
Even so, Jason understood that Todd wasn’t speaking only about Brian or Philip.
He was speaking about his mother.
About Penny.
About accepting help from dangerous people because the people he loved needed to live.
Jason couldn’t find a comforting answer.
None existed.
So he merely nodded.
Slowly.
Confirming it.
Todd closed his eyes for a moment, as though the silent permission caused him pain.
When he opened them again, he looked older.
“I’m going with him.”
The statement struck Jason like a blow.
“Todd…”
“He’s going to get my mother out of the hospital.
He said he can obtain the medicine she needs.
He said Penny will be safer there.”
Todd took a deep breath.
“I don’t trust him.
And I trust Philip even less.”
He looked toward the hospital.
“But I trust this hospital even less than either of them.”
Jason wanted to argue.
He wanted to tell him that Brian was dangerous.
That Philip might be worse.
That the path Todd had chosen could lead him into something much darker.
That Jason knew things he couldn’t explain.
But he couldn’t.
Not without revealing too much.
Worse still, he had no better option to offer.
The warehouse could protect them from ordinary doors.
Not from cancer.
Not from a lack of medicine.
Not from time.
“When are you leaving?” Jason asked.
Todd stared ahead.
“Tonight.”
The answer came far too quickly.
Brian already had everything planned.
Jason could feel it.
“He was already prepared for this,” Jason said quietly.
Todd didn’t deny it.
“I think so.”
They fell silent.
The wind moved the leaves overhead.
A child laughed in the distance.
Todd lowered his head.
“I wanted you to tell me I’m doing the right thing.”
Jason clenched his jaw.
“I don’t know if it’s the right thing.”
Todd looked at him.
Jason held his gaze.
“But I know you’re trying to save your mother.
And your sister.”
Todd’s throat worked silently.
“That has to be enough, right?”
Jason didn’t answer.
Because in the world that was coming, perhaps enough would be all they had left.
Todd stood.
Jason did the same.
For a moment, they faced one another as they might after a difficult game, when neither knew whether to speak or merely slap the other on the shoulder.
Jason extended his hand.
Todd looked at it.
Then he pulled Jason into a quick, tight embrace.
“Don’t die, idiot,” Todd murmured.
Jason closed his eyes for a second.
“You either.”
Todd was the first to pull away.
He tried to smile but couldn’t.
“Take care of Melody.
And your parents.”
Jason nodded.
“Take care of your mother.”
Todd looked toward the path leading back to the hospital.
“I’ll try.”
Jason wanted to say more.
He wanted to warn Todd about Brian.
About Philip.
About Penny.
About Georgia.
About the future.
But the words remained trapped inside him.
So he said only:
“Good luck.”
Todd nodded once.
Then he turned and began walking back.
Jason remained in the park, watching his best friend move away.
Every step seemed to carry Todd beyond the plan Jason had built.
Beyond the warehouse.
Beyond his reach.
Closer to Brian Blake.
Closer to Philip Blake.
Closer to a town that might one day be called a sanctuary.
Or a prison.
Jason slipped his hands into his pockets and looked toward the sky.
Plans survived only until they encountered reality.
And once again, reality had chosen a path he hadn’t anticipated.
I’m using AI to translate this story.
English is not my native language.
If you would prefer to read it without an AI translation, you can find the original Portuguese version on this same profile.